Three theoretical perspectives on cultural universals and differences in the content of self-concepts were tested in individualistic (United States, n = 178; Australia, n = 112) and collectivistic (Mexico, n = 157; Philippines, n = 138) cultures, using three methods of self-concept assessment. Support was found for both trait perspectives and the individual-self-primacy hypothesis. In contrast,...

T his paper explores the conditions under which cultural cleavages become politically salient. It does so by taking advantage of the natural experiment afforded by the division of the Chewa and Tumbuka peoples by the border between Zambia and Malawi. I document that, while the objective cultural differences between Chewas and Tumbukas on both sides of the border are identical, the political sal...

Attitudes are not static, but constructed at the moment of the evaluation, incorporating temporary contextual influences. How do meaningful events that naturally occur within a culture, such as a national holiday, shape evaluative judgments of objects related to the holiday? We focused on evaluations of red roses and gift chocolates, which are everyday objects, but also iconic of Valentine's Da...

MORTALITY SALIENCE AND VIDEO GAMES 2 Mortality salience, the realization of the inevitability of death, creates intense psychological terror within humans. Terror Management Theory posits that particular behavioral patterns, such as establishing and defending a worldview, reduce this terror (Greenberg et al., 1990). Behaviors due to mortality salience are strikingly similar to behaviors seen wi...

The theory of moral intuitionism views moral judgment as emotion-driven, universal, and evolutionarily-derived. Expanding on that theory is the idea that all moral judgment stems from five foundations of moral intuition: harm, reciprocity, ingroup, hierarchy, and purity. Terror management theory proposes that individuals are motivated to adhere to a cultural worldview in order to prevent the an...

Reverse Engineering Complex Cultural Concepts: Identifying Building Blocks of “Religion” Ann Taves ABSTRACT: Researchers have not yet done an adequate job of reverse engineering the complex cultural concepts of religion and spirituality in a way that allows scientists to operationalize component parts and historians of religion to consider how the component parts have been synthesized into larg...